The pleasure of working in my garden is matched by the fulfillment I get from using my herbs every day—for seasonings, teas, tonics, and beautifully textured craft materials. I use many of the same herbs, along with essential oils and other common supplies, in my everyday chores around the house, from scouring the floors to tucking moth-repellent sachets into drawers and freshening the air.

Making simple herbal cleaning products gives me a sense of harmony with my environment. I also feel a connection with all the women who first gathered plants in the wild and nurtured seedlings in their gardens, then harvested the plants and prepared them for a multitude of uses. I can imagine them hovering over their concoctions in stillrooms, experimenting with new combinations of herbs to improve their efficacy, and eventually using their products all around the cottage or castle. Many of these women, and not a few men, wrote down their “receipts’’ in books so that subsequent generations might benefit from their knowledge.

I believe that safe, gentle cleaning products are better for people, animals, and the environment than harsh commercial ones. The National Research Council has estimated that hypersensitivity to chemicals found in common household products results in acute or chronic health problems for about 15 percent of the population. For the sake of my family’s health, I don’t mind the little extra time it takes me to make my own cleaning products.

Fortunately, none of the formulations I’ve developed requires much time to make. I’m not a glutton for housework, and I’m always looking for shortcuts, but I confess that I look forward to making up one or two different formulas a week to help me with the sweeping, wiping, vacuuming, dusting, and endless other chores that our little yellow brick bungalow demands.

Taking my cue from herbalists of the past, I’ve incorporated herbs into scouring compounds, floor and wall soaps, sanitizing room sprays, and fragrant sachets. The ability of some of these herbs to inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms and repel insects certainly contributes to the effectiveness of the products.

Cleaning Up

For cleaning fine china and glassware, bathroom fixtures, kitchen counters, lightly soiled walls, appliances, and painted woodwork, I like to use a warm solution of borax or baking soda spiked with an infusion of fresh or dried aromatic herbs such as lavender, rosemary, thyme, and sage. I steep a cup of a single herb or a combination of several kinds for about 15 minutes in 4 cups of boiling water, strain, then stir in 1 to 4 tablespoons of baking soda or borax. I wipe the mixture on with a sponge, then lightly rinse.

For tough jobs like vinyl floors, walls, woodwork, or furniture—even wicker baskets—I use my Herb Soap Concentrate (see recipe below). It’s my favorite all-purpose cleaning solution, and it’s quick and relatively inexpensive to make. It has as its base a mild commercial soap concentrate, to which I add herbs and essential oils. I wipe it on with a sponge or mop, then rinse quickly, sometimes adding a dash of vinegar to the rinse water to discourage the growth of bacteria.

Household Herbs

The herbs and essential oils that you’ll find most useful for various household tasks include those that inhibit the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi, those that repel or kill insects, and those that act as fixatives (ones that aren’t attractive to insects). Use the following lists of herbs as a guide to making your own formulas.

Furniture and Floors

I use my Herb Soap Concentrate for cleaning almost all of my wood furniture and woodwork. For wood finished with shellac or varnish, I follow up by rubbing in essential oil of lemon with a lamb’s-wool duster. Once or twice a year, I damp-mop my hardwood floors, then rub lemon oil on them, too. I do this when I can open all the windows, as the scent is intense.

For wood with an oil finish, I use this Fragrant Wood Polish, which I developed many years ago at the request of my husband, who is a cabinetmaker.

Fresh Air

Nothing feels more like spring to me than open windows and fresh scents around the house to dispel the stuffiness of winter. Here are formulas for an air freshener, which can be varied according to your mood and the oils that you have on hand, and a sachet to keep shoes smelling fresh.

Drawers and Closets

Cleaning out my drawers and closets, rearranging them to match the new season, and storing my winter clothes is a spring ritual at my house. First, I empty the drawers, vacuum out any debris, wipe them with a damp cloth, then spritz them with my Drawer Spray (recipe at right). Next, I make sachets, also known as sweet bags, to put in the linen and clothes closets and dresser drawers.

A number of herbs are known to repel moths and carpet beetles, whose larvae eat the keratin of animal fibers such as wool, which has a sulfurous odor such pests find inviting. The larvae and egg-laying adults are also attracted to the salts and oils in sweat and stains. Since onions and garlic also have a sulfurous odor, the pests will hone right in on that wool suit you wore the evening you ate that delicious, garlicky pesto in an overheated restaurant.

The Amish laid branches of southernwood in their cupboards and pantries to deter ants and other insects. This technique may interfere with the ants’ ability to communicate through odor trails and, in the case of carpet beetles and clothes moths, may mask the odor of keratin compounds in clothing. Researchers have shown that compounds in sage, rosemary, wormwood, tansy, hyssop, pennyroyal, camphor bark, and cedar leaf inhibit the hatching of beetle and moth larvae. Other fragrant plants, such as thyme, patchouli, verbena, and mints may appeal to your sense of smell while displeasing the insects.

To avoid attracting pests in the first place, wash or dry-clean all clothing before storing in a drawer or ventilated closet. Leave at least an inch of space between garments in the closet. I occasionally run a fan to get the air moving. In humid areas, some people keep a lightbulb burning in the closet to combat mildew. I also use an aromatherapy diffuser to mist lavender oil in my clothes closets once a week for about ten minutes, and I’ve never had moths in my woolen clothes.

Louise Gruenberg gardens as much as possible and cleans house as little as possible in her Oak Park, Illinois, home. She also writes and teaches about herbs. Due to popular demand for reprints of this article, it has been reprinted from our February/March 1997 issue with the author’s permission.

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